John Dee

The freeway makes the distance a non issue. Bypassing Cranbourne would be nice. Casey Scorp has given me the clue; stay on the South-Eastern, eschewing the South Gippsland exit, and approach the ground from the other direction. Next time I go to Casey, I will hit the Melways and give that a go.

Improvement in all things. Somebody had a go at Bailey for saying that we needed to be competetive for longer, but he was just telling it like it is. Winning is nice; being competetive for four quarters is better. I do not want to be sitting there at half-time wondering why I have never left a game before the final siren. I want to go into next season with hope in players already in the team rather than players who are yet to play, Grimes not withstanding.

We passed on our last pick in the draft; this enabled us to have a pick in the pre-season draft. Barry Prendegast has stated, after the event, that we would have taken Bail no matter what. This leaves us with the only option that fits the discussion - Liam Jurrah.

The latter is hypothetical; the former is a non sequitur. We would not have used pick 17 if we wanted Spencer, we would have elevated him and cost ourselves Pick 1 in the pre-season draft - Liam Jurrah.

I put in a bid for Spencer's jumper, but somebody gazumped me.

Beauty! We didn't make the finals at tennis, so I will be there. I will take my own seat and sit on the outer wing as per normal.

With all the ins someone has to go out. I would guess that they were happy with him last week and had a few others they wanted to look at ( Newton, I'm talking about YOU ), or he's picked up a niggle; either way it's no big deal.

Michael Wilson is clearly showing a little too much man-love for Jack. The best photo is of Jared Rivers, in action.

That dates back to October and a lot of water has flowed under the bridge since then. As I see it, this was an intention, but, why would we need to have veterans? I simply do not believe we are in any danger of breaching our 92.5% of the salary cap, so why do something that we did not have to do when we knew we had Valenti and Spencer as rookies that we would like to play seniors?

When he drifted out to the wing and linked up to kick under preasure to a leading Bate he reminded me a lot of Jimmy the Prez;.mainly the kicking style.

Bugger, last round of summer tennis on Saturday. After getting defeated last Saturday we need a miracle to make the finals; I would rather go to the footy, even if it is at Princes Park. Why is this not being played at Casey?

One thing that I would like to see is a definitive answer from MFC, or the AFL, as regards the veterans on our list. As I understand it, a club can declare eligable players as veterans and get up to half their salary put outside the cap; this only needs to be done if the club has to do it to remain under its salary cap. If you have no veterans you can nominate two rookies as eligable to play seniors without needing a long term injury; with one veteran, you can nominate one. If you recall, this is what we did with Davey. The lack of information in this area when it should be readily available and transparent is very frustrating.

If you click on any of the images a new widow pops up with an expanded image and full details of who took it and who it is in the picture; yes it is Sam Blease, love the short pants.

Robbo was interviewed on SEN last night by Francis and the Ox. He said that Jared had simply rolled his ankle and that it had puffed up a bit. He was confident that nothing serious had occured and that Jared would be completely OK within a week or so.

You just about gave me heart failure! I had previously deduced that I could watch it and had recently come to rationalise that that must have been because it was on Sunday; I play tennis on Saturday. I have just checked the fixture and see that it starts at 16:10 on Saturday. We are playing at home and will have two courts all day; I will be home by 16:10.

Funny things happen at this time of year. Clubs that did not make the finals have had an extra month of conditioning and recovery from the previous season; clubs that went deep into the finals played up to five extra tough games and will have plenty of players who are not ready for the first pre-season game. It just depends on who is available. We are a real chance

Basically the AFL can get away with saying that 2009 is an uncomprmised draft. This is technically true. However, what they have done is raise the lower age limit of this and all future drafts to proclude the clubs drafting 17 year olds. Gold Coast will be able to sign up to 20 of the 17 year olds who would otherwise be eligable for the 2010 draft. The upshot of all of this is that, except for the Gold Coast, 2010 will be an absolute bust draft year with all of the 17 year olds from 2009 and the 2010 concessions.

When does the next crusade start?

I want to see it officially. I have not received any email and there is nothing on the MFC web site. I cannot go on Saturday as I play tennis. I was planning to go on Friday evening. If it really has been changed I am majorally [censored] OFF!

Fair enough Jack, but the situation has changed somewhat since the bad old days. With the salary cap in place and the salaries of the coaching staff known, boards do not have much wriggke room, not withstanding Carlton. This would mean that the MCC would just have to demand that we work within the league's parameters, something that we are already doing. I am ambivalent on this one; I see good and bad points on each side.

THe MFC site says that you have to bring either a 2008 or 2009 membership card to gain admittance.

So what you are saying is that one of St. Kevins or Xavier is now defunct; news to me.

Anybody who is superstitious is at least one sandwich short of a picnic.

Inverloch going over to the Dee jumper coincided with the start of my support for MFC. I still remember their original strip; green with a red vee.

They should go to Inverloch, they wear Demon jumpers; or they did in my day.